Youth justice: rearranging the deckchairs or real reform? (original) (raw)

Youth Justice: Past present and future

In contemporary youth justice in England and Wales, there is too much emphasis on offence- and offender- focused approaches and an insufficient focus on promoting positive outcomes for children in conflict with the law. What is more, since the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, the voices of children embroiled in the Youth Justice System have been marginalised and their participatory rights rendered invalid. Both children and Youth Offending Team workers are finding involvement in the Youth Justice System (e.g. assessment, planning, intervention, supervision and review) to be a disempowering and disengaging experience. In this paper, we outline a number of contemporary tensions and conflicts in relation to youth justice law, policy and practice: the highly political context of youth justice, the criminalising risk, prevention and early intervention agendas and the unique and specialised nature of youth justice services. We also introduce a focus for future developments and 'creative possibilities' for youth justice. Specifically, we advocate for Children First, Offenders Second (CFOS), a progressive and principled model of youth justice that advocates for child sensitive, child appropriate services, diversion and the promotion of positive behaviours and outcomes for children, underpinned by evidence-based partnership working and the engagement of children (and parents) at all stages of the youth justice process.

The changing shape of youth justice: Models of practice

Criminology & Criminal Justice

This article reports on a two-year investigation, which maps out contemporary approaches to the delivery of youth justice in England, in light of substantial recent changes in this area of practice. The findings are derived from a detailed examination of youth offending plans and a series of corroborative semi-structured interviews with managers and practitioners from selected youth offending services. Our inquiry has enabled us to develop a detailed three-fold typology of youth justice agencies’ orientations towards practice, represented as ‘offender management’, ‘targeted intervention’ and ‘children and young people first’; as well as a small number of ‘outliers’ where priorities are articulated rather differently. Our findings enable us to reflect on this evidence to suggest that there are a number of ‘models’ of youth justice practice operating in parallel; and that there does not appear at present to be the kind of ‘orthodoxy’ in place which has sometimes prevailed in this fiel...

A Broadened Lens: Juvenile Justice Reform

This policy brief addresses the effectiveness of the policies currently and historically implemented within the United States for offending youth. Traditionally, society has implemented non-youth-empowering approaches, instead of individualized and trauma-informed solutions for youth offenses, thus inappropriately detaining and displacing young people, causing harmful effects to their development, and increasing the likelihood that they will become socially irresponsible adults. Building from evidence about the effectiveness of youth-led approaches, such as interventions offered by Youth Advocate Programs, the author concludes that a broader range of approaches are needed to empower offending youth within their communities, not as a problem to be dealt with, but as rich resources and opportunities to be embraced. If this approach is taken, society can more directly focus on the causes of young people’s offending behaviors and improve the public’s health and well-being.

Submission: Proposed Reforms to Youth Justice in Queensland

Legal Affairs and Community Safety Committee, 2013

The proposed reforms to the youth justice system in Queensland are premised on the assumption that offending by young people is increasing. We noted (Carrington, Dwyer, Hutchinson and Richards 2012, 8) in a recent submission about the boot camps legislation that: Statistics suggest that this concern is not warranted. Certainly studies show that 'rates per 100,000 juveniles in detention in Queensland have been relatively stable compared with the national trend' (Richards 2011) and that rates of detention of child offenders have declined generally in Australia over the last three decades. Youth offending statistics are affected by the diversion options used by the police, as well as by the numbers and levels of policing, and any special strategies such as Operation Colossus in the northern part of the state. 'Community concern' about crime does not always reflect the true rates of crime across Queensland. Policy should be based on valid evidence, not on 'community concern'. With stable numbers of young people being detained in Australia, the research clearly suggests that youth offending is not escalating. Boot Camps Question: Are the Sentenced Youth Boot Camps/Early Intervention Youth Boot Camps good ways to stop the cycle of youth crime and close the revolving door of youth detention? Our position: Against: There is no empirical evidence to suggest boot camps are good for stopping the cycle of youth crime and closing the revolving door of youth detention. Further, we have concerns that the Early Intervention Youth Boot Camp may in fact draw young people into the criminal justice system who would ordinarily not have had any contact with the system. Evidence:-Wilson et al.'s (2005) meta-analysis of 32 robust research studies of militaristic boot camps concluded that 'this common and defining feature of a boot-camp is not effective in reducing post boot-camp offending'.-Wilson and Lipsey's (2000) research has clearly demonstrated that boot camps and wilderness camps are ineffective unless they include a strong therapeutic focus on education, families, and psychological and behavioural change. Question: Are there other ways to stop the cycle of youth crime and detention for young people who are committing serious or repeat crimes and to get young people back on track? Our position: There are better ways to stop the cycle of youth crime and detention for young people who are committing serious or repeat crimes and to get young people back on track. Evidence: Research suggests that diversion is a more effective method of reducing reoffending (Carrington and Pereira 2009; Cunneen and White 2011). There are a number of effective programs which stop the cycle

Where has all the Youth Crime Gone? Youth Justice in an Age of Austerity

Children & Society, 2014

Youth justice under the Coalition government in England and Wales has been characterised by considerable gains-falling youth crime, increased diversion and substantial reductions in child imprisonment-that would generally be associated with a progressive agenda. Focusing on youth justice policy in England and Wales, this article suggests that the tensions implicit in a government of the new right delivering outcomes that demonstrate an increased tolerance to children who offend, can be explained by the logic of austerity. That same logic brings with it other policy measures that are potentially less compatible with children's wellbeing. The youth crime of today is not what it used to be Youth crime in England and Wales under the UK Coalition government is not what it was, in at least two senses. First, there is significantly less of it. In 2012, 47,019 children below the age of 18 years received a formal pre-court disposal 1 or conviction for an indictable offence compared with 73,712 in 2010 when the new administration came to power, a decline of almost 36% (Ministry of Justice, 2013). 2 Second, youth crime is no longer the 'hot' political issue that it once was. From the early 1990s to the mid-2000s, youth justice constituted the locus of what has been referred to as a 'partisan 'arms race'' (Centre for Social Justice, 2012:26) wherein the main political parties vied to demonstrate their tough credentials to the electorate (Pitts, 2003). This 'punitive turn' is generally understood as a manifestation of an internationally changed orientation towards crime and offenders whose origins lie, over the longer term, in social and economic changes associated with late modernity (Garland, 2001). There were, of course, significant differences between adult justice systems and those that deal with children, and between the UK and other Western jurisdictions, but while it stood in the vanguard, England and Wales thus not totally exceptional in this regard, although direct policy transfer was more likely with the United States than with European neighbours (Muncie, 2008). New Labour's engagement in this process was an enthusiastic one: during the 1997 election campaign, one of the party's 'five pledges' to the public was to ensure swifter punishment for 1 Formal pre-court disposals comprise: reprimands, final warnings, youth cautions and youth conditional cautions 2 Although the focus of this article is England and Wales, youth crime has also fallen sharply in many other Western jurisdictions for reasons that are not entirely understood